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I spend a lot of time on line. Part of it is due to the nature of my work and lifestyle - I spend 8-10 hours a day, five days a week, at my home office desk, in front of two computers. Periodically during the day, I take little mini-breaks and look at my RSS feed or Facebook.

But it seems like the older I get, the more I end up writing letters. Yes, real letters, using ink pens and note cards, carried by the U.S. Postal Service.

Part of the current crop of letters are heading to the Navy's Recruit Training Command in Great Lakes, IL. The only form of contact the Smart Boy is permitted to have is Snail Mail, so I've been sending two or three notes a week, offering encouragement and such. But I also send notes to some of the elderly women in my life who don't use computers, as well as a few friends who do use computers.

It just seems more personal to write things out longhand, and I know the ladies on my weekly distribution list appreciate and enjoy my boring little missives.

I wonder how long it will be before no one writes personal letters anymore?

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Seriously, though, I preferred typing things even before computers became ubiquitous: my handwriting has always been something of a wreck. It was alright for scrawling out a song lyric and chord changes, maybe, but if I wanted someone else to read whatever it was and I had a typewriter or word processor or computer lab available, that was what I went to.

I hope the art of letter writing never goes out of style. If there's one thing that can perk up a day it's getting a nice note in the mail.:) Which reminds me, I've fallen behind writing my own letters to people. Thanks!

There is nothing like opening the mailbox and seeing a handwritten letter.

Not only do you get the perk of "Hey! This isn't a bill!" There's also something to the recognition that, "someone cared enough to sit down put pen to paper, just for me!"

I've been a letter writer since I was little, but, like you, I also wrote letters to the various grandmothers in my life (mine, my cousins', my husband's) and I was told by all their caregivers how much those letters would brighten their days.

Eric, truly, the legibility doesn't matter, it is, as the saying goes, the thought that counts.

I'm in the same boat as Eric. I invariably make errors and have to scratch them out to correct them.

However, since I have several friends who do me the honor of writing letters (usually on funny or beautiful cards), I try and return the honor. I trust that since they are my friends they will over look the blots and errors.

See, I didn't want to admit this but I might as well: I'd rather get an e-mail. I get a letter in the mail, I start feeling vaguely anxious. Amongst the several reasons for feeling anxious is the sense of guilty obligation: that there's some implicit obligation, now that I've received a letter, to acknowledge receipt by writing my own letter even if I don't actually have a thought that counts, and quickly, even if I don't really have time to sit down in front of a blank page and stare at it until some lame recounting of my recent non-events appears on the page which I'll then have to print out and remember to stick in an envelope and do I have stamps? (The answer to that last question, actually, is yes, I have a few--because I never mail anything anymore, I even pay all my bills online.)

There's actually a little bit of that anxiety when I get an e-mail, but the fact it's a brief and ephemeral medium except when it wants to be means there's less pressure to respond or to respond substantively.

So, yeah, I'm one of those neurotic introverts who'd rather not receive a letter, which I guess also makes me an asshole and unlikely to stop being an asshole, which is why I kind of wanted to avoid it but since everybody's talking about how much they looooooove letters, well....

Eric, dude - don't overthink it. There are people in my life to whom getting and receiving traditional letters is a treat. You're not one of them. That doesn't make you an asshole, and you don't need to apologize for it anymore than those who are uncomfortable getting friendly hugs need to apologize for not liking to be touched.

Seldom do I write or receive a handwritten letter, any more. Arthritis and eyesight, among other things, has caused me and most of my buddies to go to typed letters or email. However, I have a few handwritten letters from years gone by that always make me smile. I open them and see my grandmother's writing, my aunt's good wishes or a friend's deep thoughts. I can't seem to part with them. An email or a typed letter, no problem, but something about a handwritten communication, just makes me sentimental. They are my little treasures.

This is an issue that I wrestle with a lot as a historian. Emails and other electronic correspondence are much harder to preserve than letters - I can read letters that are hundreds of years old, but have you ever tried to read a 10-year-old computer disc? My current word processing program won't even read things I wrote on its predecessor 8 years ago.

I love getting and writing letters, though I admit to not doing it nearly as much as I used to do. Email and the like have now largely replacing that activity, even for me. So, Eric, no hard feelings :)

One thing more, for me, is that an email is a copy - an electronic facsimile of the original message - but a letter is an original, something that someone held in their hands before sending it off to me. For that alone, I love them.

Just saw a new play called "futura," which is one of those oppressive, totalitarian future sort of pieces in which writing is, in fact, a lost art. (Lost in favor of electronic communication.) Makes a pretty good case for putting ink on a page.

Also says that there are areas of the brain that light up (in an MRI sense, I presume) when you're writing, which don't light up when you're composing something via typing. As this was, y'know, a PLAY, this could be bull, but it did make me wonder. (Especially since I've started typing everything at work, when I used to take handwritten notes on my legal research. I made the change for ergonomic reasons -- was getting wrist pains holding a pen -- but I have wondered if the change in method has had an effect on the actual notes I take.)

About Me

I am a Hot Chick living in Castle Rock, CO with my fabulous family. We have a rescue dog named "Jackson," and she's a Basenji/Shepherd mix. She's something of a head case, but we love her. I'm a U.S. Navy vet, and I currently work as an Enterprise Solutions Architect, specializing in VoIP and multimedia contact center design. I care about social justice, libraries, science, the U.S. Constitution and the military. I'm a tax and spend liberal in a largely red county, but I try not to be stabby about it. I have a little resale side business called "Alastrina Enterprises." Stupidity, cupidity and wanton assholery piss me off, and I'm more than a little soft when it comes to dogs and those who serve others. I blog about whatever I feel like. I use foul language, so if that sort of thing offends you, feel free to fuck off now - if I'm unwilling to clean up my language for my fabulous Great Auntie Margie, I'm unlikely to do so for you. Newcomers are welcome here, especially those who disagree with me, but trolling and spamming will be met with the Shovel of Doom™.